Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity listing*
Official Website

LaNacion [Costa Rica] coverage*
LaNacion [Costa Rica] (Y. La Cruz) review*
DeleFoco (Y. Oviedo) review*

Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013] (directed and cowritten by Laura Astorga Carrera [IMDb] along with Daniela Goggi) is a Costa Rican film that played recently at the Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Set in the 1980s, the film tells the story of 10 year old Claudia (played by Valeria Conejo [IMDb]) and her younger sister Antonia (played by Aura Dinarte [IMDb]) who as daughters of Costa Rican leftist parents Flipe (played by Fernando Bolaños [IMDb] [DF]*) and Magda (played by Carol Sanabria) had spent much of their early lives growing-up in neighboring Sandinista dominated Nicaragua following the pro-Communist Revolution there (which had ousted the hated Samoza dictatorship) and during the subsequent "Contra War" (against U.S. backed post-Samoza anti-Communist forces).

At the beginning of the film, Claudia and Antonia's parents had decided (and received permission from their Sandinista commanders/allies...) to move their family from Managua, Nicaragua back to San José, Costa Rica.  Why?  Well that's a very good question and a good part of the task given to the audience as it watches the film is to try to come-up with a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it seems that Managua had become a relatively dangerous place to live as the Contra War ground on.  And yes, Felipe and Magda were NOT Nicaraguan (but rather Costa Rican sympathizers to the Sandinista cause).  Perhaps they had enough of a war that ultimately was "not theirs."

However, it was also clear at least at the beginning of the story that they were not simply leaving Nicaragua to "run away."  Instead, as soon as they returned to San José, Felipe and Magda settled into a document forging operation in support of the Sandinista regime.  (The film's director Laura Astorga Carrera present for Q&A after the film -- and who explained that the film was based on her own childhood experiences -- she would have been the 10 year old Claudia in the story -- explained that the kind of "support operation" that Claudia / Antonia's parents would have been involved in would have been done by Costa Ricans sympathizing with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and NOT by Sandinista Nicaraguans themselves because "Nicaraguans would have 'stood out' in Costa Rica at the time").

Yet it was ALSO clear that Magda's family (very, very regular middle class) in particular was quite happy to see their (perhaps "wayward") daughter and _her_ two young daughters (along with a husband who, while they weren't necessarily openly hostile to him, had after all, "married into the family" ...) finally "back home from Nicaragua" and presumably "out of harms way..."

After Felipe and Magda along with their girls arrived in San José, Magda's family quickly put the two girls in a nice Catholic grade school.

This is when we, the audience, first begin to appreciate just how "different" (from Western norms) Claudia and Antonia's upbringing had been up to that point: They had been growing-up in a quite "Spartan" milieu of fervent Sandinista regime (basically Communists) back in Managua.  Hence they didn't have (or even think to have) a lot of "stuff" and what they did have -- Claudia's prize possession was a box of various Communist pins from all over the Eastern Bloc.  So there were Soviet ones, Cuban ones, various East European ones, perhaps even a Libyan or Angolan / Mozambican one -- didn't make a lot of sense in their transplanted Costa Rican (and now back to more traditional Catholic) surroundings.

On their first day at their new school, the principal asked them if they knew their prayers and ... of course they didn't.  On the other hand, Antonia asked her older sister "where the Pioneers are" (the Communist equivalent of the Scouts) because she had apparently always wanted to be one (as Claudia apparently already had been).  Claudia answered, that the school apparently didn't have a Pioneer group yet and for a good part of the rest of the film, poor Claudia spends a fair amount of time, putting together a guidebook (from memory ... and remember that Claudia was a 10 year old) for a Pioneer group that she was going to start for her little sister and their friends.

Now since this story is being told primarily from the perspective of the 10 year old Claudia, the school scenes become absolutely priceless:  This is the story of two little previously Communist girls adapting to live in a renewed Catholic environment where (this is Central America in the 1980s after all) there were now ALSO Protestants.  So as the real drama "begin to happen" in the story (below) Claudia's Catholic friend always suggests "well let's pray an Our Father" or a "Hail Mary" about it (and patiently teaches Claudia how to pray these prayers), while another friend of both girls -- of "Communist Claudia" and her Catholic friend -- who's a daughter of a Protestant Minister always prays for Claudia and Antonia "from the heart" with these absolutely heartfelt/delightful renditions (again, she's also just 10 years old) of the more Pentacostalist prayer style that she knows from her home (with eyes closed yet gazing heavenward, "Oh Heavenly Father ...").  So if nothing else, these little previously "Communist girls" were loved by their believing (Catholic AND also Protestant) friends.  And they appreciated the heartfelt concern of these new friends, all 10 year olds, as well.

So what dramas start "happening" at Claudia / Antonia's home after they return after some years from Sandinista Managua?  Well ... a fairly short time after returning, Magda, their mother SUDDENLY and (not getting into details) WITH HELP FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY DITCHES THE FAMILY AND APPARENTLY RESURFACES A FEW DAYS LATER IN MIAMI (Florida, the United States).  What the heck happened?  Felipe (Claudia and Antonia's father, and Magda's husband) doesn't know what hit him and Claudia / Antonia don't understand really either.  Claudia feels sorry for her father.  Magda's family, on the other hand seems to understand totally.

Now obviously a lot still needs to be resolved as Magda's family appears, after all, to have been more or less traditionally Catholic and so having their daughter just dump and leave her daughters with her husband that she'd be presumably leaving, wouldn't make a lot of sense.  And yet to leave everybody and everything that she previously stood for -- La Revolución! after-all -- for the "Gringo-Imperialist" citadel of Miami seems so shocking to begin with.  So why would she do it?

The director, who was present at the screening, again freely told the audience that the story was based on her own early years with a couple of key differences -- in her actual story not just her mother but also the whole the family ALL took the opportunity once they got back to Costa Rica from Nicaragua to "ditch the Revolution" and flee to Miami.  She explained that to be fervent members of a revolutionary group like the Sandinistas became LIKE BEING IN A CULT: The only way to "get out" was to "get out" COMPLETELY.

The director added the twist in this fictionalized story of Magda, the mother of Claudia and Antonia coming to the conclusion that she "wanted out" without telling her husband Felipe.  (Or perhaps she simply/primarily OUT OF THE MARRIAGE).  IN ANY CASE, "to get out" meant FLEEING EVERYTHING not just "The Cause" but also (at least temporarily?) her husband and family.

It all makes for a very interesting / compelling story.  And while I don't necessarily expect this film to play on "HBO Latino" anytime soon (to say nothing of HBO, period), I do honestly hope that the director/film makers make the film available SOMEHOW for purchase or streaming.

Being a Catholic priest of Czech descent (hence with relatives who ALSO lived in the Communist Bloc) as well as having devoted most of my years as a Catholic priest in Hispanic Ministry, I found pretty much every single character in this story both believable and often _extremely well drawn_.

The couple, the kids, the family, the kids' friends they were ALL remarkably well crafted.  This was truly a remarkably well told story about human ties in a family in a time and place that was very complicated.  And it's a story that won't necessarily be told "in the mainstream."  GOOD JOB!


ADDENDUM:

Two films that I've reviewed previously on this blog that would be interesting to consider as one viewed/reviewed this film would be (1) the African American film For the Cause [2013] that played last year at the Black Harvest Film Festival (sponsored annually by the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago) that was about an estranged African American family (mother, father and grown daughter) struggling with secrets left-over from the mother's/father's days in the Black Panther movement and (2) Marthy Marcy Mae Marlene [2011] staring John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen about a young woman who was trying to get herself out of a cult (and her sympathetic but "out of her depth" older sister trying to help her do so).


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Walking with the Enemy [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Historia y Cine (J.L. Urraca Casal) review*
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review

Background Materials:
     ShalomMagazine.com (M. Michelson) article about Hungarian WW II era Jewish Resistance Hero Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum
     NYTimes (A. Gates) review of documentary Unlikely Heroes [2003] which included the story of Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum and was narrated by Ben Kingsley
     JewishStandard.com (J. Friedman) article about a stage play entitled "Unlikely Hero" about Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum
     Wikipedia entry about post-WW I / WW II era Hungarian Head of State (Regent) Miklós Horthy
     Wikipedia entry about Swiss Vice-Consul to Hungary Carl Lutz credited for saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews

My Review:
While in truth the final verdict on the film Walking with the Enemy [2013] (directed by Mark Schmidt, screenplay by Kenny Golde with additions by Richard Lasser) will need to come from both the Jewish/Israeli and Hungarian press as well as Jewish/Israeli and Hungarian public opinion (in both Hungary/Israel and abroad), IMHO the key to appreciating this film is that, set in WW II era Hungary during the closing year of the war, the film actually tells the stories of a number of people, both Hungarian and non, including Hungary's WW II era leader the Regent Miklós Horthy, trying to navigate their way through the horror/mess of the War "In the East," that is, seeking a way to "walk in the midst of enemies" on many sides. 

The primary protagonist of the film, fictionalized (for reasons unclear to me), is Alec Cohen (played by James Armstrong) who is based on the actual Hungarian WW II era Jewish resistance hero named Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum (article about, review of 2003 documentary in part about, review of stage play about).  After escaping a Hungarian forced-labor-camp for young able-bodied men of Jewish ancestry and discovering that the rest of his family had been deported from their home village, he went back to Budapest where he became involved in the Jewish underground there.  Since he had "Aryan features" (looked German ...) and like many educated Central Europeans at the time he spoke German fluently, he came to _impersonate_ a German SS officer in late-1944 Nazi occupied Budapest (Obviously he had to get a hold of an SS officer's uniform to do so).  Then together with several others Jewish resistance members (also dressed in captured SS uniforms) playing as if they were under his command, he would interdict attempts by the Hungarian National Socialist Arrow Cross units to round-up and capture Budapest's Jews, sending them instead to safe-houses throughout the city and giving them forged Swiss citizenship and travel documents obtained from the offices of Swiss Vice-Consul to Hungary Carl Lutz (played in the film by William Hope).  Of course, together they were but a tiny squad of impersonators in the midst of Hungary's capital city under Nazi occupation and as time went on, increasingly under siege by the approaching Soviet army.  So the number of people that they could actually save was necessarily "small" (though the number approached thousands to even tens of thousands) and of course involved enormous risk (capture meant torture and followed by summary execution).  Still, a remarkable number of episodes recalled in the background materials about the historical Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum cited above are dramatized in the film.

Then Hungary's story during World War II was about as complex as they come.  The World War II era Kingdom of Hungary was led by a conservative (former admiral) Regent Miklós Horthy (played in the film by Ben Kingsley) since the chaos following the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, a chaos that had included a brief period when Hungary had been under Communist rule.  Hence Regent Miklós Horthy was very wary of the Communist Soviet Union even as he mistrusted the mass movements of Fascism as well.  As "Regent" that is a "stand-in" (if for several decades ...) for the "vacant" throne of Hungary, he was, if nothing else, a rather "old school" Aristocrat, or at least espousing the values of that old Aristocracy.  As such, the "mass movements" of the time, especially those espousing thuggery (like both the Communists and the Fascists) were ever suspect by him.  Yet, post WW I Hungary was a small country between two regional powers -- Soviet Russia on one side and later Nazi Germany on the other.  So Miklós Horthy is portrayed in the film (and the wikipedia article about him seems to agree) as one who navigate Hungary between these two powers.  Yes, for much of the War, he did consider Nazi Germany as "the lesser of the two Evils," but so long as Hungary remained not outright occupied, he did the minimum to cooperate with the Nazis.  Notably, while Hungary remained unoccupied he refused to allow Hungary's Jews to be deported.  In late 1941, under pressure from Nazi Germany, he did come to expel (to Nazi occupied Ukraine, and hence to their deaths ...) Jewish refugees who had fled to Hungary (non-Hungarian citizens).

History seems to bear-out his resistance to Nazi pressure as he was NOT tried as a War Criminal after the War).  It was when Miklós Horthy tried to negotiate an Armistice with the Soviet Union that the Nazis stormed in to occupy Hungary and the persecutions / deportations of Hungary's Jews to the death camps of Nazi occupied Poland began.

Anyway, the story of Miklós Horthy's (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to "walk between Hungary's enemies" is also portrayed in this film.

It all makes for a complicated story, but one that many of Central European ancestry would certainly appreciate.  I, of Czech parents, have an aunt who has always quite adamantly maintained that if Austria-Hungary had been able to survive as a "Central European Federation" respecting the rights of all its constituent ethnicities then neither the Nazis nor the Communists would have been able to come to dominate Central Europe and perhaps WW II would have been able to have been prevented.  The splintering of Central Europe into many tiny nation states (including post-WW I Czechoslovakia) resulted in none of these little countries being able to stand-up to either the resurgent Nazi Germany or the post-WW II Soviet Russian juggernaut.

Again final word on the accuracy of the portrayal of WW II era Hungary in this film should be left to both Hungary's (and Israel's) press and public opinion (both in Hungary/Israel and abroad).  But I do appreciate the attempt.  Also Catholics (as well as Protestants) would appreciate that the film-makers tried to underline that many attempts, often successful, by both Catholic / Protestant institutions as well as clergy and laypeople to provide safe-havens to Hungary's many (hundreds of thousands) of Jews.  The Nazi and Hungarian Fascist Arrow-Cross jackboots often carried the day.  However despite brutal occupation, tens of thousands perhaps upwards to several hundred thousand Hungary's Jews across the country were saved.  And that is something to note (and honor) as well.

So over all, pretty good job folks, pretty good job!  This was _not_ a simple story to tell and you did IMHO quite well!  Congratulations!


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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The Other Woman [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

The Other Woman [2014] (directed by Nick Cassavetes, screenplay by Melissa K. Stack) will probably not win many academy awards.  There I said it ;-).  A lot of Cameron Diaz vehicles are like that (I think of the quite trashy but at times honestly very, very funny Bad Teacher [2011] ... yes she played there an awful teacher and on oh so many levels ;-).   I would also add that I find the current film's PG-13 rating very hard to justify (PARENTS TAKE NOTE...).  After all, teens and even children can be admitted to see R-rated films.  They just have to attend the film with an adult (usually a parent). 

Further, since the film's clearly adult focused / oriented -- there's not a single child or even teen cast in the entire film -- I'd honestly think that most teens wouldn't find the film particularly interesting.  It's basically about a fairly large bunch of (to teens) OLD PEOPLE (folks in their almost 30s, late 30s, 40s and beyond) acting "very badly."  Mom and dad might find parts of the movie quite telling or otherwise funny.  BUT I WOULD IMAGINE THAT THE AVERAGE TEEN WOULD QUICKLY NOTE: "HEY THIS FILM ISN'T ABOUT US _AT ALL_" and declare it "lame."  And they'd be RIGHT.

So what to say about a movie that's about adultery, adultery and more adultery? 

Well, at least the film shows pretty well the pain that the said adultery causes.  One can't help but feel sorry for "living far-off in the Connecticut suburbs" wife Kate King (played by Leslie Mann) who discovers that her Manhattan-working well-dressed wheeling-and-dealing "entrepreneur-of-some-sort" husband Mark (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has been cheating on her. 

One even feels sorry for the Manhattan apartment living, "living the dream" (even if previously "unattached"), late-30-something/40-something corporate lawyer Carly (played by Cameron Diaz) who thought she found "a soul-mate" (someone who could understand her) in the confident, ever well-dressed, above mentioned wheeling-and-dealing "entrepreneur-of-sorts" Mark.  He clearly knew Manhattan.  He clearly knew the "dog-eat-dog" pressures of life/business there.  And yet, he seemed to "stand above it all" ... finding time to be romantic with Carly despite the pressures of the pitch and the sell and the job. 

But then a life of "wheeling and dealing" in a high-stakes / "dog-eat-dog" world of commerce, especially if one's wife lives blissfully "far away in the suburbs" can present Temptations to use those "wheeling and dealing skills" (being "everything for everybody" in order to make the sale ...) in "other fields" besides business.  And so we find that good ole Mark even has another mid-late 20-something babe named Amber (played by true Sports Illustrated supermodel Kate Upton) squirreled away at a beach house in The Hamptons and finally another brown-haired, light-sundress-wearing beauty in the once Caribbean Pirate haven, more recently recast as a "tax haven," of The Bahamas.   Mark would make a few airline pilots, traveling salesmen and even spies jealous ... sigh ... ;-).  And yet in the end as I write this, I can't but feel a little sorry for him as well:  One _could_ say that he had arguably become a (up until he got caught) "multi-tasking monster" of our time, juggling _a lot_ of "balls" (yes, I get the double meaning ;-) "in the air."  YET LOOK AT THE DAMAGE TO SO MANY PEOPLE THAT HE CAUSED ...

Anyway, bottom line ... this is not necessarily a bad reflection piece FOR ADULTS.  But I still don't understand the PG-13 rating.  If I were a teen, I'd find the film "kinda boring/lame." ;-)


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Rio 2 [2014]

MPAA (G)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (K. McFarland) review

Rio 2 [2014] (directed by Carlos Saldanha, characters and story by Carlos Saldanha along with Don Rhymer screenplay by Jenny Bicks, Yoni Brenner and Carlos Koktin) surprised me in a good way, through truth be told, I should not have been surprised.  After al,l the director Carlos Saldanha is orignally from Brazil and so would be expected to make a even a kids' film several orders of magnitude more respectful and enlightening of his country of origin's culture than Hollywood films for the big (Grand Budapest Hotel [2013]) and small (Muppets Most Wanted [2014]) made by film-makers with at best a "reader's" or "tourist's" appreciation of the cultures that they were portraying (and frankly making fun of...). 

I held off on viewing and reviewing this film because it came out theaters here in Chicago on the very same weekend as the annual Chicago Latino Film Festival featuring dozens of excellent films made by Latino film makers about their own cultures and national histories (I still have a couple of films that I saw at the festival to review here).  I did not want to confuse authentically Latin American / Latino films made by authentically Latin American / Latino film makers with a Latino-based film coming from Hollywood, but seeing it now, I kinda regret that ... ;-) because Carlos Saldanha honestly did a great job here (and he is in fact, from Brazil ;-).

However, talking for a moment  to adults and not really here to kids -- yes I realize that Rio 2 [2014] was a kids film ;-) -- we live in a globalized time in which for the very small "annoyance" of watching films with subtitles we can (if we choose to) see films at festivals like Chicago's annual European Union, Latino and Black Diaspora Film Festivals about different places in the world, made by film makers from those places in the world.  These kind of festivals take place NOT JUST in larger cities like Chicago but ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES. One just has to look for them: Just Google "Film Festival" and the state or major city that you live in or near and you'll be surprised how many of these festivals play ANNUALLY near you.  The films playing these international film festivals, which are held all over the country and indeed across the world, are made by film-makers from all over the world.  And far more often than not, they are far more intelligent than the one-two-or-even-three-step removed productions made by "far away from the subject matter" Hollywood.  Yes, one will run into propaganda pieces, but (1) one runs into domestically made propaganda pieces as well (consider said Muppets Most Wanted [2014] mentioned above as well as Hop [2011] and Hoodwinked 2 [2011] among even domestically made KIDS' FILMS), and (2) many/most foreign films playing at these festivals are personalist human dramas about what it's like to live in "fill in the blank" country made by a film-maker ACTUALLY FROM THAT COUNTRY.   So ADULTS (and again, not really kids) for the price of "putting up with subtitles" for $10-12 one can get in 2 hours a better perspective into what it's like to live in "fill in the blank" country, the country's history, what the country's proud of, etc, than one could get spending THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on taking "a tour" there.  That's not to say that tours and MISSION EXPERIENCES are bad.  But international film festivals ARE A LOT CHEAPER ...

Muito bem (very good) ... back to the film at hand ;-).  Rio [2011] and now Rio 2 [2014] is that rare Hollywood children's animated film franchise that's made by a director who's actually originally from the country in which the films are set.  And honestly both films become WONDERFUL AMBASSADORS TO VIEWERS with regard to Brazil and its culture.

THE CURRENT FILM'S VERY FIRST SEQUENCE links the flamboyance of the world-famous carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro with the flamboyantly colorful BIRDS and other wildlife of Brazil.  The people dancing in the streets and on floats parading through the streets -- the people often dressed in elaborate and colorful feathers -- are juxtaposed with the film's lovable and colorful BIRDS DANCING AND SINGING (chirping) AWAY AS WELL.  Wow!  What a GREAT WAY to explain the uniqueness of Brazil's carnival celebrations as compared to the ways it's celebrated (always flamboyantly, but ever differently) across the globe and in a way that even a kid could understand:  Brazilians often dress for Carnevale in flamboyant dress often accented by feathers BECAUSE THEIR OWN BIRDS ARE DRESSED THAT WAY.  And they sing and they dance JUST LIKE THE BIRDS OF THEIR LAND DO.  Again, even a 6 year old could understand that ;-)

Then the fundamental story in the Rio franchise about the relationships between Birds (to a large extent conflated WITH BRAZILIANS) and various people (often enough but not always WESTERNERS / NORTHERNERS, that is "non Brazilians").  And to the franchise's credit, the franchise shows IN BOTH FILMS that there are both "good and bad Birds" (again often linked to Brazilians) and "good and bad People" (again often linked to Westerners/Northerners that is, non-Brazilians).

So Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenstein) is a rare Brazilian Blue Macaw who in the first film actually spent much of his life "up North" (in the United States) among humans and even at the beginning of this film remains quite at home among people perhaps even more so that with birds.  Indeed, he and his wife Jewel (voiced by Anne Hatheway) actually were introduced to each other as a result of intervention of humans: In the first movie Tulio (voiced by Rodrigo Santoro) a Brazilian ornitologist (one who studies birds) came all the way up to the United States to find the very rare Blu (to bring back for Jewel then thought to be only other "Blue Macaw" left in the whole world).  Dr. Tulio finds Blu happily residing in snowy North America (as the first film notes "NOT Brazil" ;-) with Linda (voiced by Leslie Mann) a (North) American pet-shop owner.  Not only does Dr. Tulio bring Blu back to Rio (for Jewel) but also Linda because the two "bird geeks" fall in love with each other in the process ;-).  The result is that both Bird and Human, and South American and North American, are shown to being able to get along and indeed help each other.

In this second film, we find that Tulio and Linda go out into the Amazon (to look for rare birds) and THERE discover (on basis of a feather) that there _may be_ other Blue Macaws living out there somewhere deep in the Amazon.  That news sends Blu and Jewel and their family out to the Amazon as well: Blu's not particularly happy as one who's lived all his life around the comforts of the city, he'd prefer to stay home, while Jewel, more comfortable with the ways of birds would like to go out and see if they could find "more of their kin").  Much ensues ...

Among that which ensues is that Blu / Jewel (and their other feathered friends) DO FIND the "lost flock of Blue Macaws" that Tulio and Linda were looking for (and actually help the two humans find the flock as well ... ;-) and, we find that at the head of this flock of Blue Macaws is ... Jewel's father, the rather stern and very "pro-bird chauvinistic" Eduardo (voiced by Andy Garcia), who for a while dismisses Blu as "a pet" for being too "lost in the jungle" and way too favorable of people ("I can't believe he used to the p-word" poor Blu complains at one point).

Well, of course, _that_ attitude will have to change and by the end of the film even Eduardo comes to recognize that while there are evil people out there (like a foreman of a logging enterprise that just wants to cut down all the trees around where they live), there are also good ones (like the hapless if kind Tulio and Linda) AND THAT IT'S A GOOD THING THAT PEOPLE (err BIRDS ;-) like BLU EXIST, who can form bridges between Birds and People (between "us" and "them") rather than just "stay with one's own kind." ;-)

And the film also features Evil Birds.  Nigel (voiced by Jemaine Clement) who had been something of a "king pin" of a "bird gang" running out of a Rio de Janeiro "favela" in the first movie, makes an appearance again as a sinister bird out to just cause trouble among the other birds as well.

All this plays out with some very authentic Brazilian and Amazonian imagery and motifs:  I've actually been several times to the my religious order's (the Servites) Mission in the Acre.  So I can attest to the authenticity of the boats and Amazonian towns portrayed in the film.  Then one of the truly inspired _gems_ of this film portrays the Blue Macaws and their Red Parrot neighbors settling a dispute. How?  With "a war."  But what do they mean by "a war"?  A "bird soccer match" with a Brazilian chestnut serving as the soccer ball ;-).

So folks this is a very nice movie with some very very nice messaging to young kids: (1) The Other need not be your enemy, and indeed could become your friend, (2) Indeed can all enrich each other just like all those tropical birds enrich the life and culture of Brazil, and (3) DISPUTES NEED NOT BE SETTLED WITH GUNS ... WHY NOT A BALL GAME OR TWO INSTEAD ;-).

And that's honestly NOT A BAD MESSAGE FOR CHICAGO (my hometown and where I'm currently stationed as well), plagued in recently by a vicious wave of gang violence, AS WELL.

So parabens (congratulations) Carlos Saldanha parabens!

 
ADDENDUM:

I mentioned above that I had gone (led a group from the United States) out to the Servite Mission in Acre, Brazil deep in the Amazon some years back.  I was also the principal translator into English of a book published (in Portuguese) for free by the Servites about the Amazon.  It was called The Amazonia We Do Not Know.  The English translation, worth the read, is available here. 


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Transcendence [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  AARP () Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Transcendnce [2014] (directed by Wally Pfister, screenplay by Jack Paglen) is a sci-fi-ish thriller set in the near future that explores the possibility (and some of the ramifications) of uploading a human mind onto a computer, in effect, digitizing it, making it (at least the digitized copy) as portable (and malleable...) as a computer virus or a jpeg file.

The concept and possibilities/dangers therefore will be fascinating to many, and yet also probably further in the future than the film's "near future" setting.  Why?  At minimum, a _functioning_ digitized copy of a brain from nature could not reside in just _any_ computer.  There are questions of brain architecture that would have to be resolved/simulated that would make the architecture of a computer fit for containing such a functioning digitized copy of a brain very different from the common-place computer or smart phone of today.  Hence said digitized copy of a brain couldn't just "swim across the internet" at will and "parking itself in just any given computer" at will ... So in the "real world" it would probably be PRETTY EASY to find where the digitized mind of AI-guru Dr Will Caster (played in the film by Johnny Depp) was residing.  And once one knew where said computer containing the digitized mind of AI-guru Will Caster was located, I'd be pretty certain that EVEN TODAY the good folks at the NSA (or even "Anonymous") would find a way to hack and destroy it without resorting to the (MILD SPOILER ALERT) rather Apocalyptic ending that the current story culminates in.

Still, I do find the possibilities / potential dangers raised by the very concept of "digitizing a human brain" fascinating: (1) If one could make a functioning digital copy of someone's brain, one could (obviously) make digital clones.  Yet those digital clones, from the very moment that they were created would necessarily begin to diverge from themselves.  (2) Could some law enforcement entity in the future do some kind of "MRI scan" of a captured "terrorist suspect's" brain and then "extract information" from the digitized copy of that prisoner's brain? (virtual "enhanced interrogation" /  or even virtual torture?).  (3) Could a future employer do said "MRI-like scan" of a potential employee's brain to make a digital copy "to run simulations with" to see what that potential employee would be capable of?  Could the employer then not hire the potential employee but keep the digital copy of the potential employee's "on file just in case" ... or even (unethically) use that digital copy of the potential employee's brain to do the employer's work without paying the potential employer for its services? (virtual slavery?)

Above, I've "played jazz" with basic concept behind the film, but the story-line of the film itself is not bad:  After AI-guru Dr. Will Caster is shot (and more importantly poisoned by a toxin-laced bullet) by a radical anti-technology terrorist group, his desperate wife and colleague Dr. Evelyn Caster (played by Rebecca Hall) decides to try to upload the contents of Will's brain into their computer before he dies (They were AI specialists working on advanced computers that were trying to mimic mammalian brain processes).   The radical anti-technology terrorist group tries to stop her, but ... well you guessed it ... she succeeds.

'Cept ... is the digital copy of Will's mind, really Will?  That's what Will and Evelyn's best friend and also colleague Dr. Max Waters (played by Paul Bethany) asks.  And the rest of the movie is about answering that question ... even as Will's "digital mind" becomes "bigger and bigger and bigger" (more and more capable) ... and hence, scarier and scarier ...

Now obviously _at best_ the digital copy of Will's mind IS A COPY (a CLONE).  On the other hand, since the original Dr. Will Caster died shortly after his mind was "uploaded" to the computer, "digital Will" could be (at least at the beginning) a _pretty good facsimile_.  And if "digital Will" changed/grew/evolved afterwards, well ... don't we all (change/grow/evolve) during the course of our lives?

Then theologically (metaphysically) speaking, there could be a question of whether one really could transfer the mind (and arguably the soul) of a person from a biological substrate to a digital one.  Then if one could make out of the digital copy thousands of other copies, would the soul copy/multiply/individuate as well?  The CNS/USCCB reviewer reminds readers that certainly the traditional Catholic/Christian metaphysical answer would be a rather emphatic no.  On the other hand, the book / film Cloud Atlas [2012] suggests that the final bastion of human prejudice will be against artificial sentient beings.

My own concern would be that even if becomes possible to upload a person's mind onto a computer, WHAT ELSE WOULD THE "GOOD PEOPLE" OFFERING SUCH A SERVICE "BUNDLE" WITH THE PROCESS ... Would the "digital you" suddenly become "incompatible" with all "name that brand" competitor products/services?  Or on the other hand could the "digital you" suddenly find itself _craving_ "name that brand" allied products/services?   Would the "Good People" who uploaded and would be storing one's digitized mind become "part owners" of its contents (our memories) and therefore be able to "sell" them?  Could some NSA-like agency be able then to get a search warrant to "scan through" our digitized mind's memories stored somewhere by the "Good People" offering us this "service" of "parking" our "digitized minds" with them?

As I wrote in my review of the recent film Her [2013] that raises similar questions, we can be thankful that whether we were created by chance OR (as we Catholic/Christians believe) BY A NOW CLEARLY, TRULY SURPRISINGLY BENEVOLENT CREATOR we do apparently truly have Free Will.  There have been no "Name that Service Ads" appearing in front of our minds' eyes or in our dreams.  In contrast, it's hard to imagine an "electronic companion" created by some for-profit corporation that would not have some kind of "adware" bundled inside that "e-friend" or accompanying our new digitized "virtual minds."   And then honestly how much "bundled adware" or other "non/post-human functionality" could there be added to a digitized human mind before its previous "human soul" would be altered beyond recognition/destroyed.  A mechanized "transformer" being only capable of using "name that brand" products/services would definitely not be a human any more (but rather some kind of weird cyber-slave) even if it was driven by an initially human brain "uploaded" to make the mechanized thing run.

But wow!   What kind of thoughts / concerns this film raises!  Several reviewers (including some I list above) have compared this film to the Frankenstein story where the lead character, Dr Will Caster plays the roles of both "mad scientist" and his "monstrous creation."  It's funny, but this may be the first time I've ever thought this (I turned fifty late last year): I'm happy that I'll probably be dead before most of what's portrayed as playing out in this film comes to pass ;-)

But still honestly, what a discussion piece!


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Heaven is For Real [2014]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-1)  AARP (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 - 4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune/Variety (J. Chung) review
AARP-MfG (B. Newcott) review 
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Heaven is For Real [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Randall Wallace along with Chris Parker, based on the book by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent) released just in time for Passover and the Christian celebrations Easter ends a remarkably respectful Lent this year by Hollywood, one which featured other Biblically themed films including Son of God [2014] and Noah [2014].

It's a hopeful (and true) story about a little boy named Colton Burpo (played by Conner Corum) who had a near death experience of Heaven after he nearly died.  Coming to after nearly dying, he surprised everyone, including his parents (played by Greg Kinnear and Kelly Reilly), with his straight-forward talking of things literally "not of this earth," things about both his family history and "things of God / the Christian faith" that AS A FOUR YEAR OLD he could not have known or easily made-up, things like Jesus' Stigmata (Colton was growing up in a Methodist household, Colton's dad being a Methodist minister) or Jesus' eye color (few to no one would have invented this detail, much less a four year old, much less the color that the four year old matter-of-factly mentioned it was -- neither "really weird" nor particularly expected).  So what happened?

It's a lovely and again hopeful story released as a film just in time for our (Christian) celebration of Jesus' Resurrection at Easter.

Do Catholics / Christians have to believe the contents of this film?  Of course not (one does not have to believe ANY "private revelation").  But it does support the basic message of the Jesus' Gospel, that "God is With Us" (Matt 1:23, Matt 28:20) through the whole of our lives and that even Death does not have he Final Word, the final Word remains with God, "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." (Rev 22:12-13).

So in the midst of a very busy next few days (I'm writing this during Holy Week as we approach the beginning of the Triduum tomorrow) this would not be an entirely waste of time to see (but do go to the Liturgies first ;-)

But in any case Happy Holy Week and Happy Easter all!


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Elena [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)   Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Official website

BrCine.br (C. Nader) review*
O Fohla.br (M. Laob) review*

Elena [2012] (directed and cowritten by Petra Costa along with Carolina Ziskund) is a heart-rending documentary that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  It's about the young Brazilian director's older sister Elena who at 19 and an aspiring actress in New York had committed suicide some 20 years earlier. 

Why did Elena do it?  Isn't that ever the question?   Petra had been only seven at the time.  What she remembered of her older sister was what a seven year old would remember plus pictures, film clips, and even voice recordings of her, as Elena, self-conscious about her "bad" handwriting would often send audio cassette tapes in lieu of letters back home to her family.

It's clear that Elena had a depressive personality.  Artists of all types are also notoriously moody.  New York, the home of the United States' "serious artists" is arguably chock full of them.  Recent films about tortured artists in New York include Black Swan [2010] (for which Natalie Portman won an Oscar), A Late Quartet [2012] (which costarred the brilliant and tortured in life Philip Seymour Hoffman, who recently died of a drug overdose) and Frances Ha [2012] (which starred the ever-smiling even if her characters face sooo much failure and pain, Greta Gerwig).

Further, this is an IMHO quintessentially Brazilian story, where family history already carries with it a great deal of suffering/pain. Though born out in the provinces in "Mines Gerais" Elena and Petra's mother had already been in her youth an aspiring artist.  She then married dashing young man who had come back from studies in the United States a convinced Leftist and Che Guevara supporter.  Together they had joined the Brazilian Communist Party and IF NOT FOR HER MOTHER BEING PREGNANT WITH ELENA WOULD HAVE ALMOST CERTAINLY JOINED THE EMERGING "BRAZILIAN COMMUNIST INSURGENCY" OF THE 1960s FORMING ON THE BORDER WITH URUGUAY WHERE THEY WOULD HAVE ALMOST CERTAINLY BEEN KILLED.  Instead, the Communist leadership had convinced them "guerrilla warfare" was NOT good for a young couple with a child and convinced them that they could play "a different role" away from the fighting.  ALMOST ALL THEIR FRIENDS WHO JOINED THE BRAZILIAN COMMUNIST GUERRILLA FIGHTERS HAD BEEN KILLED OR EXECUTED IN THE YEARS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING ELENA'S BIRTH.  The irony, of course, that Petra and her parents ALL owe their lives to ELENA who grew up to kill herself is again just heart-rending.

Then from what I've experienced of Brazilian families (my religious order, the Servites, has a significant presence in Brazil), distance especially for young women, from their families is REALLY, REALLY HARD.  So even though Elena initially went ENTHUSIASTICALLY to New York to study performance arts (acting and dance), and even made some connections -- she apparently reported back home that she met people like Francis Ford Copolla -- soon she found herself deathly homesick, quit everything and went home to Brazil.

So what did the family do?  Again, something IMHO quintessentially (if they have the means) Brazilian: both mom and younger daughter Petra accompanied Elena back to New York to LIVE THERE WITH HER TO SUPPORT HER so that she'd complete her studies.

Of course, Elena was a mess.  And despite a family that loved her and clearly wanted to support her, she spiraled inward and eventually took a bottle of pills and killed herself.

What could have been done?  Elena had apparently gone to get help.  She was on lithium in the months before she died.  This was apparently just before Prosac and similar anti-depressant drugs had come-out.  

She was above all a very sensitive person, an artist type in a family with both perhaps predispositions toward sadness/depression and then a family history (the friends around the parents who were all killed) with much to feel sadness / depression about.


So how does the director tell the story of Elena's life and her death.  Beautifully.  She interviews people who knew her as a friend and as a student.  She uses those audiotapes of her reports back home.  She uses old 8-mm and Super-8 movie clips of her when she was young and then performing at school in New York.  She also uses the metaphor of water (see the poster) showing Elena as simply feeling overwhelmed.

Does the film glorify her suicide?  It's a question to ask.  I'd say emphatically no.  If anything, the film so clearly expresses the sadness of the family that lost her, misses her and has experienced her suicide as a very big hole left by her in their lives.  They do go on, but they wonder why (she did it) and wish (for both her and their sake) that she was still with them.  No it's not a glorification of suicide at all.  The film just shows it to be a big, sad hole, for everyone it touched.



* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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